George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org> writes:
> On 06-Oct-97 Raja R Harinath wrote:
> >I'm thinking of a hamm-friendly bo (hbo? :-) -- which basically has all
> >the `libc5' libraries from hamm. People using `bo' would upgrade to
> >`hbo', which basically moves all the libc5 libraries from /usr/lib to
> >/usr/lib/libc5-compat, and all devel tools into /usr/i486-linuxlibc1;
> >leaving thing in a state most amenable to upgrading to `hamm'. This
> >could be a mini-distribution, which just has the libraries, and maybe
> >the `altdev's, and some packages that are closely dependent on the exact
> >version of the shared libs (`bash' would be one, I guess).
> >
> >Such a distribution would help greatly in the Libc5 to Libc6 migration.
>
> Somehow I think this is a bad idea but I can understand the intent.
> What it would do is force double the work on the developers and
> maintainers. They will have bug reports for libc5 and libc6 versions
> ... sometimes the bugs would be different. They would basicly be
> maintaining two versions of the same package, possibly with completely
> different sets of bugs ... 2.0 would NEVER get done.
Notice that I am talking only about `lib' packages, not all packages.
We already have for `hamm' to do all the work of maintaining `libc5' and
`libc6' versions of shared libs that exist both in `bo' and `hamm'.
This work _has_ to be done if you're planning to support anyone
upgrading from `bo' to `hamm', either from `stable' to `unstable', or
from 1.3* to 2.0.
My proposal is just to encode the `Libc5 to Libc6 Migration HOWTO' into
a mini-distribution. Basically the existing procedure is this:
- For each (problematic) lib
1. upgrade to a libc6-friendly libc5 lib.
2. Install the libc6 lib.
The mini-distribution approach is as follows:
1. Upgrade en-masse to a libc6-friendly, but still libc5, set of libs.
- Your machine will still be usable. Most other packages will work
fine. If some don't, tough luck, this is a step-up distribution,
hopefully it'll work with `hamm'.
2. Upgrade to `hamm'.
No playing around with `dpkg' command lines. Everything is done with
`dselect'.
This mini-distribution probably doesn't even need to have all the libs
-- just the essential ones -- definitely ld.so, libc5, libreadline (for
bash), libgdbm (for perl?) and any other libs mentioned in the migration
HOWTO.
Of course, having this step-up distribution means more work for the
ftp.debian.org maintainer.
- Hari
--
Raja R Harinath ------------------------------ harinath@cs.umn.edu
"When all else fails, read the instructions." -- Cahn's Axiom
"Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing." -- Roy L Ash
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